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Rick Perry's tour markets more than Texas: Our view

It doesn't take a Harvard MBA to see that this is more about politics than business. Perry, who's eyeing a 2016 presidential run after his disastrous 2012 bid for the Republican nomination, has found a way to do what candidates usually have a hard time doing three years before an election: garner loads of attention.

Rick Perry's tour markets more than Texas: Our view

Deep in the heart of self-promotion.

The presidential campaign bus of Texas Gov. Rick Perry arrives in Clinton, Iowa, in 2011. This year, the Republican has been touring states headed by Democratic governors.(Photo: Nick Oza, The Arizona Republic)

Story Highlights

Republican has found a way to do what candidates usually have a hard time doing three years before an election.

Texas' economic performance is more of a mixed bag than a miracle.

Texas is home to none of the large-cap tech or biotech companies that have seen the most spectacular growth in the past quarter century.

He delivers his speeches, tours factories and takes out radio and TV ads telling businesses that they can cut their tax bills by relocating to the Lone Star State. So far, he has targeted New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri, Illinois and California, and he has plans to visit other states as well.

As an economic development exercise, Perry's excellent adventure strikes us as harmless, though not very neighborly and not likely to be very effective. States routinely try to attract new companies, sometimes with their governor getting involved, rarely to much noticeable effect.

But it doesn't take a Harvard MBA to see that this is more about politics than business. Perry, who's eyeing a 2016 presidential run after his disastrous 2012 bid for the Republican nomination, has found a way to do what candidates usually have a hard time doing three years before an election: garner loads of attention.

The best way to look at Perry's job-poaching tour is less as an economic development exercise and more as an extension of a campaign to put Texas' economic record (and, by extension, his own job as governor) in the best possible light. He began pitching his state during Republican presidential debates in 2011 and 2012 and is continuing it now.

In truth, Texas' economic performance is more of a mixed bag than a miracle. The state has seen nearly a million new jobs since the depths of the recession. But much of this growth is purely a function of its swelling population.

Its unemployment rate of 6.4% is lower than the rate in each of the six states Perry has targeted. But it is only low enough to rank it 17th in the country. (North Dakota has the lowest rate at 3.0%, and Nevada's is the highest at 9.5%.)

What's more, net job gains and unemployment are only part of the picture. Texas has the 10th highest poverty rate and the highest percentage of people without health insurance. Its median annual household income is middle of the pack.

Thanks in part to its light regulations and low taxes, Texas has done well at attracting low-paying jobs, but not so well with high-paying jobs in fields such as technology, biotech and finance.

In these industries, what is most important is not tax rates or regulations, but the environments that help them attract high-skilled workers. And in creating these, Texas has only done a so-so job, lagging behind some of the very states that Perry has been targeting.

Texas is home to none of the large-cap tech or biotech companies that have seen the most spectacular growth in the past quarter century, and it counts only two companies in Forbes' list of the 25 fastest growing technology companies. California, with higher taxes and more regulations, has 11.

Major employers rarely relocate from one place to another just because an ambitious governor comes a courting. So, if and when Perry visits your home state, keep in mind that the impact is more likely to be political than economic.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.